Would you pay for Roms/Themes?

I created an account specifically to post this poll. I have been hacking my phone for a while now and noticed a lot of the developers running into issues with this or that with their hardware and preventing them from being able to develop until donations are made to buy them a new device.

So I got to thinking..... what if they charged everyone $1 to download their ROM or theme? I know I would be more than willing to pay for the work they put in.... I would happily forgo a cup of coffee in order to have my phone running as smooth and quick as it does thanks to rubiX or Liberty. I would also do the same for juicemane and his beautiful themes.

Think about how this would affect the ROMs and our community, devs would be more motivated because they would be receiving some compensation and it would even attract other developers because they know they would be receiving money for putting in the work. The rom community would be no different than the market, developers could put stuff out and get paid.

The question is this.... would you be willing to pay a small amount like $1 to download the roms, it would work similar to buying an app from the market but you could instead pay via paypal.

What do you all think? (I chose the droid X board on purpose because I know there are many people here who believe in supporting developers)

i would pay for both, however, there has to be some sort of return policy. i have tried pretty much every ROM out there, as well as multiple themes simply because something wasn't working for me. i am all for supporting the developers. they should put something into the ROM that after 30 days or something, a pop-up comes up and has a paypal donate page.

I understand everything your saying and its a good idea but a few things.

If developers starting charging people to download there roms (the code of which comes from bigger companies) could cause legal issues. If you remember beautiful widgets and htc getting mad at it for having the same looking clock they already made. Forced him to change the clock.

If developers charged for there roms it could be abused and they could put out a lot of smaller updates and charge for each one which over time adds up.

A lot of people already send these guys donations for there work. But legally I don't think they can charge you to download it but I could be wrong.

Bottom line: your posing a good idea and could work, but I think there's a few issues that could come about from doing it

You bring up a good point, there would more than likely be legal repercussions.

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I think the donations depend on the phone/rom, I don't have a droid x so I'm not sure how many people use that. But I know for the original droid people have donated a good amount to the well known devs.

And yes definitely legal repercussions. Accepting donations is okay, but charging would cause a problem

I really appreciate everything the devs here do. They do a great job helping us get the most out of our phone. However, there are not any rom's that i would pay for. The reason being is there is not any rom available that has "it all" or is free from bugs like most software that you pay for.

Also since android is open source i am fairly sure it would be illegal.

I think if people were to start paying for roms the quality of roms would sky rocket and real talented people would come in. Making roms isn't attractive to devs at all. In all honesty I consider any time I spend making a rom free work. If I were to keep track of how much I made per hour working on roms it would probably come to $1 an hour. Devs have a much greater payout and guarantee of return by working on apps for the Android market. This keeps many talented devs from even considering working on a rom. I do roms for fun, not for money and the fact that I still do them after a year and recieving a very low return shows that... so charging for roms or not, I'm still going to be making roms. Just putting in my 2 cents.

JRummy has an excellent point. I don't know about other devs, but I spend more than 70% of my day thinking about my ROM. 50% of that time is spent working on it. I have only received $70 in donations since I started developing, and nothing in the last 2 months. I'm not complaining. I'm learning a lot by doing this, so wether or not I make any money from this, isn't an issue. I'm broke, and looking at possible eviction because I don't make enough money at my 2 jobs to pay all of rent and bills. Its a learning process, but its not the end of the world. My situation is temporary

I donate to certain devs who roms i use.. i dont donate every release but i try to hit them up every now and then. same way with themerers i follow 2 themers and they have both received donations from me. not saying i dont try other themes and roms, and not donatate.. but the ones i keep going back to receive my money.

i would pay for both, however, there has to be some sort of return policy. i have tried pretty much every ROM out there, as well as multiple themes simply because something wasn't working for me. i am all for supporting the developers. they should put something into the ROM that after 30 days or something, a pop-up comes up and has a paypal donate page.

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I agree 100%... I've used probably 8-9 different ROM's and the ones I go back to, I donate to. There has to be some sort of return policy, and it wouldn't simply do to make them available on the market, since the 15 minute return policy is woefully inadequate for most apps, let alone a full ROM, where it might take hours or even days to evaluate fully.

If you charge for a rom then I have a right to complain and demand a fix for every bug I see. Its like the android market if people bought an app and its buggy they gonna let the people know.

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But if there was money going into the devs for there Rom's, like jrummy said " the quality would skyrocket". Many Rom's like liberty and apex are very solid Rom's without much funding. If there was more money going into the developers they would have better equipment, and there would be Rom's out there with almost no bugs. And you will always be bugs... the official releases of eclair, froyo, cupcake, and gingerbread all have bugs straight from the source. But in closing I would pay for roms maybe a good idea would be doing what ADW and LP offer a free version and a paid version? Of course the paid version would have tons more options.

I think if people were to start paying for roms the quality of roms would sky rocket and real talented people would come in. Making roms isn't attractive to devs at all. In all honesty I consider any time I spend making a rom free work. If I were to keep track of how much I made per hour working on roms it would probably come to $1 an hour. Devs have a much greater payout and guarantee of return by working on apps for the Android market. This keeps many talented devs from even considering working on a rom. I do roms for fun, not for money and the fact that I still do them after a year and recieving a very low return shows that... so charging for roms or not, I'm still going to be making roms. Just putting in my 2 cents.

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That's easy for you to say your roms are awsome! But as for the paying for roms Issue ....yeah give em money and get a cleaner,better supported, products...or let them put em in the market??? There are good guys here they should get paid!...what would be the bees knees is if the manufactures ... unlocked all there phones And payed the devs for there work independntly....and put them on the market( of course giving devs a percentage for continued support and updates) like video games do for ps3/xbox! So every one gets paid? Just as long as there is a return policy and a cap in price, and no extra charge for updates .....well maybe 10¢

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